My First Time: Female, 17, Delaware

I was seventeen and a freshman in college when I lost my virginity. Most of my friends from high school were shocked that I had managed to hold onto my "flower" as long as I had, but I came from a small school, where most of the students had dated/hooked up/slept together, and I was completely uninterested in joining these incestuous ranks. I never even had a real boyfriend until my senior year of high school, but even then, the situation was more like "best friends with benefits." I never had a real desire to have sex with him, or with anyone else I had met.

I was never one of those girls who thought she should wait until she was in deep, overwhelming love to lose her v-card.

But on the other hand, I was never one of those girls who thought she should wait until she was in deep, overwhelming love to lose her v-card. I was, actually, quite the opposite. I was pragmatic about it. Virginity loss, I'd been told, was a painful, bloody process, so why would I want to burden a boyfriend with such an uncomfortable obligation? I'd decided over the summer before college how I was going to lose my virginity: I was going to find another freshman virgin who wasn't interested in anything serious, and then we'd lose our virginities together. It was a perfect plan — simple, no fuss. So, after Labor Day weekend, when classes began, I set about finding my perfect first-time-fucking buddy.

Intro to Political Science class. Twenty-five freshmen in one room, learning about the American political system. We were all smart (honors students), we were all first-years (the class was a pre-req), and there were equal numbers of boys and girls (hard to find in some college classrooms). He sat diagonally behind me — average height, bulky build (like he lifted weights, but didn't do anything too athletic), a smattering of facial hair. Cute. My type. I talked to him after class, asked him about his Transformers t-shirt. We spent the rest of the day wandering around campus, skipping classes, eating lunch, teasing each other, flirting. By the end of the day, I knew he would be the one I would share my virginity loss with.

Next step: how to get him on board. It wasn't very hard to transition into fooling around. His roommate was never around (he was porking some girl down the hall) so we had his room all to ourselves most nights. We quickly moved from kissing to dry-humping to fingering/hand jobs. The big event happened on an unassuming weeknight. We were fooling around naked when he reached over to his night stand and pulled out that familiar package — a Trojan, shiny in the flourescent light so familiar to college students. I paused, pretending to think about it. Then I swallowed hard and nodded.

The actual sex? Not great, but I had expected that. Yes, there was pain. And yes, there was blood, more than I'd expected. But I had done it. I was no longer a virgin. And you can bet your ass I told all the girls on my floor about it.

We never had sex again, but that was okay. I didn't need it from him. A few months later, I met the boy I would spend the next three years with. One of my friends asked me if I regretted having sex with the boy from Poli Sci. She was wondering if I wished I still had my virginity to give to my new boyfriend. I said no, and I stand by that answer. I'm glad it went down the way it did.